Peak ICO: Paris Hilton endorses a token sale | Hacker News Reader

Peak ICO: Paris Hilton endorses a token sale

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To make it even worse, this ICO is being run by that RadiumOne asshole who got jail time for extreme domestic violence: https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2016/aug/12/gurbaksh-...

Crypto gold rush is attracting all sorts of unsavory characters.

"This is not an ad".

Hmm, maybe it's not. If you are reading, Paris, I'd love to have your input on the following few questions of mine:

1) What are the benefits of participating in an ICO, when compared to an IPO, a Kickstarter, or just generally taking on equity in a traditionally established company?

2) How much do you feel would be an acceptable investment in an ICO?

3) What product or service will be delivered by this company, and how long after the ICO would that service come into legitimate availability?

4) What recourse do I have, if any, should I desire to withdraw my funds?

>Official Twitter Account for LydianCoin Pte Ltd., First A.I. Big Data Marketing Cloud for BlockChain

This has to be satire...

Are you questioning AI BIG DATA CLOUD BLOCKCHAIN???

Guys don't miss the "Launch Promo" video, you'll regret it for the rest of your life if you do: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l644fAxGzlw

Nice find. I thought it was a parody there for a while.

You can tell it's aimed at taking advantage of people that don't have much. "If I invest in this coin I can fly a jet pack around Dubai!"

Hopefully next time he'll hire someone to do the voice-over, or at least get some coaching on delivering lines.

sorry for the low substance comment but...

OMG! I almost never watch videos(low content to time ratio), but this is hilarious. I don't know what the word for phrases that are buzzwords(cliche?), but this has most if not all of them.

Just wait till you find another video for gravity4, the parent company running this scheme: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PtW0WIDM2cY

It's so hilariously bad that it's a masterpiece, almost like "The Room".

Even if cryptocurrency does turn out of be a bubble, it will still change everything.

A cryptocurrency bubble would look very different from a typical economic bubble because cryptocurrencies are more than just financial instruments; they're a form of protest against the established financial order. If it were to collapse, the disillusionment and blame that would come out of it may be enough to start a revolution.

As more people start buying cryptos and start doing more research, they become increasingly sceptical about the existing financial system.

> If it were to collapse, the disillusionment and blame that would come out of it may be enough to start a revolution.

You mean, if it's not different this time? The average person doesn't understand the monetary system, and having cryptocoins won't change that.

Most people buying these things just buy because the price is going up _fast_. But these ICOs don't have any inherent value -- they're tokens being created out of thin air by random people with mostly stupid ideas.

> As more people start buying cryptos and start doing more research, they become increasingly sceptical about the existing financial system.

The financial system has its flaws -- for sure. Blockchain tech is very interesting, but I don't believe crypto is a valid solution.

That said, you can still make money in a bubble, so enjoy the party while it lasts?

A lot of them have inherent value. When you use Stripe to pay for something, you pay a transaction fee. When you use Bitcoin or any other cryptocurrency, you also pay a transaction fee (which is often much lower than what you would pay with a standard gateway; particularly with large transactions). That's profit; the profit gives intrinsic value to the network.

The bitcoin network is quite slow and power hungry, so as a result the BTC transaction fee is now over $4 which is high; the BTC network is saturated due to high demand; so that's why we need altcoins to add capacity. There aren't enough altcoin networks to handle the demand for crypto-transactions. A blockchain does not scale unfortunately (each one has a hard physical throughput limit), so the best way to scale a block chain is to add more side chains (which is what alt-coins are; you can think of them as specialized shards of Bitcoin). It's like the Domain Name System - There is a hierarchy of machines and networks which together can handle a massive volume of domain name lookups.

Any network which proves itself to be a trustworthy and reliable way to transfer money has intrinsic value which is determined by the present or future value of the network of services around it.

> If it were to collapse, the disillusionment and blame that would come out of it may be enough to start a revolution.

I agree with the sentiment but I don't think it will happen even if it were to crash, because I am pretty certain that 99% of the people who have invested in Bitcoin have no idea how it works enough to be that disillusioned, and I'm being generous about the percentage.

Really, even the VCs and media pundits on Twitter who tweet their commentaries about ICOs and cryptocurrencies pretending to be knowledgeable really have no idea what they are talking about and it shows even in 140 characters.

If these people are like that, the general public will never get to understanding the full potential of cryptocurrency, just like most people don't understand how TCP/IP works. At best people think of it as an easy way to make money, like stock market.

So yeah, I definitely will get disillusioned if all this crashes, but most others won't be. They will see it as no different from some stupid mistake they make at Las Vegas.

It's different this time?

Most certainly an Ad. Just like Floyd Mayweather was on IG promoting Stox.com ICO

@floydmayweather

> Champion Predictions: I'm gonna make a $hit t$n of money on August 26th. I'm gonna make a $hit t$n of money on August 2nd on the Stox.com ICO.

Source: https://www.instagram.com/p/BXD4KDqgX3x/

I heard an ad on the radio for Dash coin while I was driving through rural Idaho (drove down for the eclipse).

https://coinmarketcap.com/currencies/dash/

https://www.dash.org/

Okay, so this is not a joke and apparently not an advert either. A dubious claim.

I'm so confused. Paris Hilton must be close to the last celebrity on earth I would have thought to endorse a coin sale. Who exactly is the audience, here? I've never even heard of Lydian coin before.

In case you missed Mayweather https://twitter.com/FloydMayweather/status/90045925678433485... this seems to be the trend nowadays. My guess is these scam companies approach these celebrities for a one time promotion deal, and since there's nothing to lose they just tweet it out.

I believe the "audience" is not so much different from those who fall for Nigerian prince scams.

Is that even legal? All I have found is https://www.ftc.gov/tips-advice/business-center/guidance/ftc... but it reeds like just a bunch of guidelines.

I'm fairly sure this is the 2010s equivalent of the shoeshine boy offering hot stock tips. Time to sell...

https://www.cnbc.com/2013/11/11/is-the-shoeshine-boy-indicat...

My cousin told me I should invest in a particular cryptocoin the other day. He knows little about computers and nothing about why this altcoin would be valuable.

When everyday people are investing in these coins to make a quick buck it makes alarm bells go off in my head.

This cheapens crypto.

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